Types of Objects

Lines and Polylines Curves Groups Squares, Circles, and Polygons Fractal Objects

Freehand Drawing Icons Text and Curved Text Rosette Bitmaps

AutoREALM uses fractals to represent rivers, coastlines, or other natural boundaries, since they have a ragged complex appearance. There are fractal equivalents of each of the main objects (Fractal Freehand , Fractal Line , Fractal Polyline , Fractal Curve , and Fractal Polycurve ).

Fractal objects have all the same properties as their equivalent standard objects: they have a color, line style, line ends, fill color and pattern, and belong to an overlay. They also have two more properties that are found on the fractal settings toolbar: roughness and seed.

Roughness

Roughness is the amount of variability that the fractal exhibits from the pattern object. With a roughness setting of 0 (far left on the roughness slider), the fractal object looks the same as the pattern object. That is, a fractal line will look just like a normal line or a fractal curve will look just like a normal curve. With a roughness setting of 100 (far right of the roughness slider), the fractal line will be wild, and won't conform to the pattern object at all (except at the endpoints).

Seed

Seed controls the look of the fractal. Every different seed produces a different fractal object. AutoREALM normally manages the seed value automatically, including incrementing it after creation of every fractal object so your fractals will come out looking differently. You may want to change the seed if you are trying to form fit your fractal to a desired shape, or if you want to create multiple fractals with the same shape for special effects.